A new story! And a new picture! If you didn't know already, this is where I comment the picture. Story comments are after the update so I won't spoil anything.

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The thick layer of snow supports your weight as you skim across the landscape. A trail of pawprints is the only sign of your passage: the light, fluffy snow makes no sound under your paws. "Said trail leads behind a snow-covered rock not too far away, and changes into a trail of human footprints. No-one'll ever notice the oddity; it'll be completely covered in a few minutes if it keeps snowing like this. The light flakes, coming as a steady stream from above, hide anything that's too far away. It smells almost like ice, but not quite. Taking a deep breath, you enjoy it's frigid beauty to the fullest. The sight from the shore of the lake is amazing: the branches of the trees behind you are covered with snow and their trunks are gray with frost. The lake itself is only a featureless plateau of pure white snow. It is completely silent. The warm air coming from your nostrils forms a silvery cloud as you continue towards your destination.

The freezing weather starts to bite through your fur when you're about halfway across the lake. Should the ice fail – which it will not, it's thick enough to support a fully-grown bear dragging a similarly sized moose – you'd fall into the water below and die in mere seconds. The snow here feels a little harder than what was in the forest. Thanks to last week's winds, you suppose. Shivering once, you accelerate your pace as much as you can to make the time spend on the lake as short as possible.

The orders you got from the seven-tails are simple: go see if Reimu is up to something. As always, being recognized as an agent of the kitsune is strictly forbidden. That, in turn, means that Reimu can't be allowed to see you change shape. You're quite certain, however, that she won't suspect a perfectly normal-looking fox. She already knows your human form, so that won't be a problem either. One problem, th

This is my first CYOA, and as such, I'm probably not going to be able to hold a candle to most of the writefags here, but if I'm doing something wrong, feel free to tear me a new one if you find it necessary.

Anyways, I'll get started.

Your head. It feels like someone took a lead block to your skull, and then tried using a torch to repair the fracture. You try getting to your feet, only to slump back to the ground. With all your might, you lift yourself off the ground slightly, and open your eyes, reveling an unfamiliar setting. Strange, you were on a steamship earlier, weren't you? You spy a building not unlike the ones you've seen on your voyages from London to Shanghai to Tokyo. Your pain-addled mind somehow makes the connection between the architecture of the building, and the Buddhist temple near your temporary home in Guangzhou. You can't manage much more mental activity, and you let your mind slip back into blissful unconsciousness.

A sharp jab to the stomach makes you shift in your sleep. A sharper jab rudely rouses you. Your head hurts relatively less now, most of the pain has shifted to your side. A golden haired girl is hovering over you, head tilted to the left in confusion. Odd, her hair has stripes that vaguely remind you of a tiger's, that's not something you see often. She holds a spear, probably the accursed object that awoke you. She starts speaking, it takes you a few seconds

"Are you alright? You're not hurt are you? We should head to the temple, it'll be dark soon, and some pretty strong yōkai are going to be coming out" It takes you a few seconds to identify the language as Japanese, a single word sticks out to you. Yōkai. Similar to the demons back home. Similar to you. You nod at the girl and rise to your feet.

[x]"Who are you?" Follow the girl.

[x] Try to find your way to the temple.

[x] Genuflect.

Previous thread at >>33879

Thanks to everyone for being patient.

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[x] Head towards the sound of knowledge.

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You figure that it wouldn’t hurt to look around a bit. The school is rather small, and you have some confidence that Reimu can find you rather easily anyhow. It’s not like you’re leaving the building, right?

Walking towards the door, you can hear the sound of lecturing...

No...

That would be the sound of teaching. The speaker seems rather passionate about what she seems to be teaching, a distant cry from the typically dry, unenthusiastic droning of your previous lecturers, (besides your master, of course,) and the content seems to be very... elementary in nature.

Of course it would be elementary, you figure, taking another quick glance around you. The size of all the shelves and various shoes and bits of kit all seem to be smaller than normal. This is a children’s school. Nonetheless, you find the sound of such dedicated education to be irresistible, and you peek in through the crack in the door.

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“So who can tell me when the Hakurei Barrier was raised?”

“Miss Keine! Miss Keine!”

The sound of little children clamouring for attention has always been understandably loud. The class is packed with the tykes, in various states of uniform and alertness. Most of them have their hands up, waving them at the unseen front of the class, frantically trying to catch her attention. The few who do not have their hands up are either desperately writing up something in their notebooks, or looking very bored. There are a couple of empty desks though.

Very interestingly, you can see a small blue-haired fairy sitting near the back of the class, doodling on her notebook, not quite paying attention to the mood in the class. It’s fairly obvious, given the presence of her crystalline wings. You’re now not quite sure about what other magical creatures are in this class.

“Let me answer! Puh-lease!”
“I know this, I know!”

You can’t help but smile, watching the sights wi

The loud sound of fireworks exploding wakes you up from the sleepiness that has been assaulting you for all this day. Shaking your head to dispel any traces of doze remaining, you look above to see the dark night sky tinted with bright flares of all kinds of colors and shapes. It was such a beautiful display that you can’t help but stare at it like a kid for a few seconds, with your mouth slightly opened in amusement. It does not matter how grown up are you, fireworks have the charm to make you forget about your daily life, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

From the top of the long stairs you’re standing on, you look down to the place where all the bustle and hustle of people is coming from. The booths and stands were distributed in a perfect square on the small prairie down your privileged position, transited by lots of parents and children sporting the traditional kimono of this festivity. Along with the light lamps, paper comets, and the occasional sparkler, they made for a rather colorful and bright scenery worthy of a portrait, and only rivaled by the pyrotechnics on the sky above. You take a deep sigh of both endorsement and pride for a job well done. After all, you helped a lot in setting up those booths, planning the fireworks and, in short, ensuring that this year’s Shichi-Go-San* was perfect. You could even say that all the hard work you’ve done was for this very moment, as you admire this stunning and pleasant sight.

A pat on your shoulder suddenly calls your attention.

“I should have guessed you’d be here,” says a male voice you know very well. “You should go down there and have some fun instead of looking at it from afar like an elder woman. You deserve it.”

You turn your head left to face your speaker and see a tall and muscular man with short black hair topped with a tall blue hat, dressed in a white and blue robes that resembled the attire of a feudal souhei*. He is showing a humble smile at you that contrasted with the worried look on his dark red eyes.

“It’s you, Gyoku,” you salute. “You startled me there! Why do you always sneak up on me like that?”

BREAKING NEWS
Novaya Braslavika precinct, Gensokyo-
Two members of the controversial punk band "Kitten Protest", identified as Mystia Lorelayeva and Kyouko Kasodanskaya, were placed under arrest by State Police after an unauthorized concert at the Myouren Temple. No further details have yet been released.

-Foreword-

Good day, dear reader. I am Zurocha. I am new here with no experience whatsoever on these kinds of stories and you might ask, “Why try a CYOA?”

Well, I just want to try new things. This fic might be long, and (hopefully) regardless of whatever votes you choose, the story will have at least one lemon. I’ll give a heads-up when that happens.

Any votes that end in a bad end will result in the story going back to where the decisive vote was chosen. I will keep on doing such until we reach at least one good end. I might continue after that so that everyone can experience the other good ends that may be possible, but whether I do so is up to my whims.

Also, I will give a one-week window for votes (I can’t manage a smaller window considering that I can only go online weekends). If there are no votes until then, then I will decide which action will be chosen myself (though that might be unlikely). I’ll only cash in my own vote when, after the window, the vote somehow ends up in a draw (2 votes for this versus 2 votes for that; very unlikely), when I’ll vote at random between the two.

I’m also a bit of a slow updater because I have very little time available to me (Weekends and Wednesdays) and because I have another fic going on, so please be patient. Another reason is that I’m writing this all by myself, which means I have to manually check for inconsistencies. I envy those with beta-readers, you know? Oh, and yeah, this chapter got through three or four beta-reads before I posted this (most of it done by my friends at the LetsDanmaku community), but I am not so sure about the succeeding chapters/updates.

Oh, and my OC(s) and the items associated with them will be having non-Japanese non-western names. I will translate for you, Bakunawa, Mawala and Gahinpilak. Bakunawa is, in Philippine mythology, a dragon that eats the moon during eclipses. Mawala means “to disappear” or “to fade” while Gahinpilak (Gahimpilak) is a compound word that means “Hard Silver” …or maybe it was “Hard Gold?” I forgot, and oh, as for what a Karis is, you can do some research about that.

Please note that this sto

They were all unconscious. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger. And then it was over. To make any kind of sense of it, I need to go back two weeks. Back to the day the pain started.

Well, I said two weeks ago, but if you want to hear the whole story, I'll have to go back two hundreds years, but since we don't have that much time, I'll be as short as I can, and I'll stick to the important parts.
Back in the days, when I was in Gensokyo, I was the unofficial leader of the Human Village. Unofficial, because I constantly insisted on the fact that I wasn't taking decision, just offering advices. I hate taking decisions, and it just happened that I was respected enough to be obeyed, no matter what I said, so I thought “okay, I'll just do my best to help them”.

You're saying I'm not giving enough details? I'm sorry, I'm not used to talk. Usually, I don't take decisions, I just follow the orders I receive. Go here, do that, come back, that kind of thing. That's why I wasn't confident in my ability to lead the village.
Hell, I'm calling it village. It's more accurate to call it a town. A small town, sure, but still a town. When you say “village”, you think “that forgotten shithole populated by 50 inbred morons”. In that case, it was a bit different. Sure, at first, most people were a bit too close, genetically speaking, but we were constantly joined by new outsiders, so calling it a village is inaccurate.
The proper name should be “Gensokyo, the Human Haven”. Because that's what it is. But you remember it, right? The calamity, and the youkai apocalypse? You don't remember? Ha right, you were dead the whole time. My bad.

I was here, and I saw everything. Well, not everything. I'm not the Queen in Purple, I cannot be everywhere, but I still saw many things I cannot forget. I guess that's why I softened. It's easy to kill someone when it's just a name, but when it's a face and a family behind it, you usually hesitate to pull the trigger. If I knew, back then, maybe I wouldn&#

[X] Focus! Tell Suika to catch up to the speedy escapee, full speed.

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Tch. You feel a bit bad about leaving the mansion without first making sure everyone's fine, but then you have a much more important objective to achieve. The revolution must continue, a little sacrifice can never be avoided, it's good thing this happens here, for they're sure to have better medical supplies they bought with their dirty money. You shake your head to clear your thoughts and focus ahead.

"Comrade, we must make haste and follow the star weaver. Fly, take to the skies, and tail the joyous laughter with brilliant speed! Haste!" You command, your voice hard as steel as your gaze lock onto the rapidly reducing form of the quick escapee.

"Eh?" Suika look at you strangel, before a grin surfaces as realisation hits. "Oh right! Hold on tight Alek!"

You grit your teeth together as the oni accelerates in an alarming rate and blasts off after the escaping blur, wind whipping across your face and constantly stinging your eyes. You fight against it, keeping your sight on the target, who is still quite far ahead. The blur does seem to be a bit larger though, so Suika is obviously making some good progress at catching up. Excellent.

The chase, you notice after awhile, brings you back to through the forest of magic. Briefly you find yourself passing through Alice's house, but another second later the house is out of your view. You chance a glance upwards, and with a little quick calculation determine that it's just past mid-day. It'll probably be a good idea to take a rest back at the shrine and have lunch after the chase ends.

Your thoughts are cut by a nose dive downwards, and moments later you find yourself zigzagging through tree branches and the like in god knows how fast you're going. You can't even control the swing of your body at this speed, and so you just hope you don't hit yourself too badly when the forest run is done. A sudden bump on the back of your head by a wayward branch incites a small yelp of surprise and a quick and quiet curse from you, and you decide to at least try

“I need you over here, now. This is urgent,” the doctor tells me, and from the somber look in his eyes, I know that he means every word. After seeing a number of patients in varying degrees of decline pass through your clinic daily, you don’t get worked up over every little cold.

No, if the doctor says this is urgent, it’s urgent. And as his assistant, there’s no way I can refuse his request. I set my parcels down at the threshold - I was just out running an errand in the village - and follow him down the narrow hallway.

The village clinic is eerily silent; at this time of day, most people are busy working in the fields or one of the many village shops. My every footstep echoes loud and clear on the wooden flooring. The only other sound to disturb the calm is the faint rustling of patients shifting on their beds as we pass by their rooms.

Eventually, we reach the innermost room of the clinic. The doctor shuts the sliding door behind him, dispelling the light of midday and leaving the place in twilight gloom.

A heap of quilts and blankets in a corner of the room quickly catches my eye. Something - make that someone - stirs beneath the layers of fabric. As I approach, I notice a tiny figure hidden under the covers, catch a glimpse of dark hair splayed out over a pillow. A human girl. (Which is about what I expected; we hardly ever get youkai patients.)

The girl squirms in her sleep, kicking off several of the blankets; her eyelids flutter briefly. This close, I can see her sunken cheeks, her wan, drawn complexion, the sticklike limbs protruding from her emaciated frame.

She thrashes under the covers again. A shrill, animal cry of pain escapes her. Without thinking, I suck my breath in sharply.

Whatever she’s dreaming about, it can’t be pleasant.

What I end up saying is: “She isn’t eating properly, is she?” A wholly unnecessary question, and not one that makes me sound intelligent, but I’m too shaken to come up with anything better.

The doctor shakes his head. Then he motions for me to move back. He’s standing at the entrance to the room. “Don’t get too close- you might get infected. If you want to hel

This will be my first Touhou Project story as well as my first CYOA, so please be gentle with me. At the very least I'm going to keep the spelling and grammar errors to a minimum. Constructive criticism welcome.

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Your name is Arcus Kail and you are a warrior... well, in training. Over recent years several Clans have allied themselves together to better weather the constant attacks being waged on your peoples from other Clans. To further this alliance, a boarding school to promote relations between the the Allied Clans among the youth was opened in neutral territory.

You, along with several other youngsters from your clan, was hit by a surprise attack perpatrated by the Kurosawa Clan - those alligator-worshipping bastards.

Being hit with a dimensional weapon, you were automatically jetisoned from the trasport in an escape pod. You don't know anything about the status of your fellow Clansmen.

Blaring an alert, the escape pod's computer tells you that you're entering the atmosphere of a temperate, Earthlike world. Intial analsys says that as long as you practice good survival procedures that you can expect to have an relatively easy time until rescue comes along.

Of course, it's just saying that. From what little you know about Dimensional Weapons, few people ever 'survive' getting blasted through dimensional space and into who know's what universe. It's not like the exit vector is fixed and you're fairly certain that at least one or two of your Clansman has been blasted into an antimatter universe or something just as awful.

After burning through the top layers of atmosphere the escape pod deployed its primary brakes, making it resemble an egg with a flower ontop to an outside observer. Inside, it made Arcus feel like he was riding a pinwheel set to self-destruct.

It shouldn't be that rough though, unless...

Despite your wireless link to the excape pod's computer, you look out the obervation window - you just have to see it with your own eyes. Even though the blades are moving at a blurring speed, yo